Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 136: Second Italo-Ethiopian War - III

The morning sky above Axum broke red.

Not with sunlight, but fire.

Italian Caproni bombers, flying from the freshly patched airfield in Axum roared over the highland edges and released their loads in a precisely timed wave.

Their targets were the hamlets and gardens around the ancient city.

Explosions tore through the terraces where families had taken shelter.

Civilians ran in every direction some carrying icons, others carrying the wounded.

A child’s body layed beside an ox-cart, unmoving.

The bells of the Maryam Tsion Church rang once, then fell silent.

By noon, the Italian 19th Infantry Division marched in through the northern gate.

There was no battle.

Resistance had faded overnight, retreating to higher ground or dispersing among the civilians.

General De Bono stood at the head of a column as it entered the square.

His boots left clear prints in the ash.

"Axum," he said to his aide. "Rome’s first revenge is written in dust."

Soldiers began taking photographs beside the ancient Obelisk of Axum monoliths once symbols of a civilization far older than any in Europe.

A radiogram arrived mid-afternoon, direct from Rome

"Prepare the largest obelisk for disassembly. Transport to Naples via Massawa. Mussolini wants it unveiled by spring."

De Bono scowled. "We wage war, and they want relics."

"But Rome demands trophies," his aide replied.

Looting began by dusk.

Churches were stripped scrolls torn, gold vessels seized, altars desecrated.

Priests who resisted were tied to trees and whipped in front of villagers.

An Italian officer was heard laughing as he waved a chalice like a trophy.

"Tell the Duce," he shouted, "Christianity kneels before Fascism!"

Further south in the Ogaden, Marshal Graziani had already begun his own movement.

At dawn, Somali Dubats irregular auxiliaries under Italian pay slipped through scrub and bush near the Dolo border post.

Moving in staggered files, they struck lightly manned Ethiopian picket posts with sudden fury.

The clash at Dolo was over in an hour.

Graziani’s advance scouts reported Ethiopian defenders had retreated without orders, confused by the Dubats’ ambush.

Italian colonial troops raised the flag over the burned customs hut by mid-morning.

"Send the artillery forward," Graziani ordered from his command truck. "Begin bombardment of any population clusters between here and Kelafo. Make them empty before we arrive."

His artillery chief hesitated. "General, civilians...."

"This is Africa," Graziani interrupted. "They all carry rifles eventually."

Back in the north, De Bono had halted his advance to consolidate.

At Adwa and Axum, road-widening operations began at once.

Over 2,000 Eritrean laborers worked in grueling shifts, laying gravel, lifting timber, hammering stone into slope trails.

Field hospitals were thrown up with tarps and basic surgical kits.

The wounded from the first two days poured in burn victims, gunshot wounds, some broken by tank rollovers.

Military telephone lines were laid by mule and motorbike units.

De Bono wanted every post from the front back to Asmara to be within five minutes of coordination.

"No delays," he growled. "We don’t win Africa by telegram."

In the hills toward Mekele, Ethiopian scouts watched the movement.

"They dig too quickly," one murmured. "They do not plan to leave."

Ras Kassa had already begun preparing the next line of defense south of Mekele.

He and his officers studied rough maps drawn in charcoal, marking ridge spines and goat paths that could funnel tanks into traps.

"We hold the narrow roads," Kassa said, tapping the hills between Wukro and Enderta. "Here, a single cannon can deny a hundred men."

"But we have no cannon," an aide replied.

"Then God help us," Kassa said softly. "Because no one else will."

Near the charred ruins of Axum, a team of Italian engineers wrestled with the base of the obelisk.

"We need the hydraulic jacks here, not tomorrow!" one shouted, sweat pouring from his face as the machinery groaned against centuries of stone.

"It’ll crack if we move too fast," another warned.

"It doesn’t matter," their officer barked. "Rome wants symbols, not ruins. Cut it if you must."

Meanwhile, a platoon sweeping a nearby monastery found three priests hiding sacred manuscripts in clay jars beneath the altar.

They dragged them out into the square and demanded the names of rebel contacts.

"We are monks," one said. "We do not name the wind."

For that, he was whipped until his voice broke.

On the eastern approach to Axum, an ambush was sprung as an Italian convoy climbed a narrow slope.

Ethiopian fighters, hidden in the rocks above, loosed a volley of old rifle fire followed by tumbling logs and flaming oil jugs.

Two trucks were smashed before machine guns returned fire.

The Ethiopians vanished as quickly as they came.

A Bersaglieri lieutenant stood over the wrecked trucks afterward.

"They don’t fight to win," he muttered.

"They fight to delay. And they’re good at it."

Night fell, but the movement didn’t stop.

Graziani’s planes flew night recon over Kelafo, photographing campfires and mule tracks by light-sensitive film.

His forward scouts radioed coordinates for bombardment.

Shells began to fall by 04:00.

Back in Dessie, Haile Selassie stood at the top of the citadel stairs, looking south.

He turned to his messenger.

"Send word to Ras Kassa we fall back no further than Wukro. If Mekele falls, we burn the passes behind us."

He looked back toward the horizon.

"And then, we fight without maps."

At a dusty plateau between Axum and Adwa, Italian tank crews worked through the night repairing two immobilized Carro Veloce light tanks.

One had snapped a track trying to cross a dried irrigation ditch.

The other’s engine seized from dust intake.

"Why didn’t they warn us about the dust?" muttered the mechanic, coughing as he reached into the engine bay.

"They warned us," said his sergeant. "We just didn’t listen."

A mule convoy arrived with fuel and field rations, escorted by Eritrean porters.

One of them stumbled dead on his feet and dropped a crate of ammunition.

An Italian lieutenant looked at him, expressionless.

"Pick it up," he said flatly.

The man didn’t move.

The officer raised his sidearm but stopped.

He waved another porter over instead. freёnovelkiss.com

"Leave him. He’ll die by morning anyway."

Elsewhere in the valley, Ras Kassa’s scouts buried landmines built from old French shells and powder barrels.

They dug with bare hands, planting them at choke points where the Italians had to pass.

As they covered the trap with earth and rocks, one young conscript looked up at the stars.

"When this is over," he said, "I want to become a farmer."

"You already are," the captain replied. "You just plant death now."

In a ruined monastery near Axum, an old monk tended the wounded.

He had turned the chapel into a medical station.

One boy, no older than sixteen, clutched his stomach, whispering a prayer.

"Are we losing?" he asked.

The monk held his hand.

"We are remembering. Each wound writes the truth they will one day deny."

A messenger stumbled into the monastery, bleeding from his temple.

"Ras Seyoum says... hold till dawn. Then strike north."

The monk rose.

"Then we give the dawn something to remember."

At that same moment, Mussolini sat in Rome, dictating a new statement to the press.

"The Empire rises. The savage yields. Victory is not an option it is fate."

In the printing house, the editor read it once.

Then twice.

And whispered, "God help us if they don’t fall."